


Royal Blood

by wendywhite13



Category: Dishonored (Video Games), Dishonored 2 - Fandom
Genre: Addermire Institute, F/F, High Chaos (Dishonored), High Chaos Corvo Attano, High Chaos Emily Kaldwin, Magic, NSFW, Rough Sex, i am a worse person for having made this, self-care is murdering everything with a pulse on the karnacan docks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 10:26:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11125215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wendywhite13/pseuds/wendywhite13
Summary: Emily has been taught violence and cruelty by her father, the famous assassin. Now alone and freed from her imperial responsibilities, she is free to teach those lessons to her enemies on the streets of Karnaca. Hunting for the Crown Killer, she finds a kindred spirit in Grim Alex.





	1. Regret

The last two weeks had been unpleasant.  
Emily had thought it oppressive being cooped up in the palace. Compared to that, the two weeks at sea had been a nightmare. She’d always thought it would be fun to travel the ocean, but the cramped, creaky ship quickly started to feel claustrophobic and stale. And around her was only the vast unchanging sea.  
She wasn’t particularly fond of her cellmate, either. Megan Foster had turned up out of the blue, giving only vague explanations as to her past or her purpose. Though Emily had tried to get more information out of her-or just conversation at all-Foster’s recalcitrant attitude had really started getting on her nerves. Mostly when Foster talked, it was to nag Emily about one thing or another. Cleaning usually. Who did she think Emily was? Even if she was in exile, Emily was still her empress. Not a damn servant.  
Every so often, Emily caught a strange, sad look on Foster’s face when she thought Emily wasn’t looking. It was something like...pity? The thought enraged Emily. She didn’t need anyone’s pity, but especially not from some down-and-out smuggler with a stump arm. It made her want to lash out at the captain, but she knew she had to hold back. Half of her guard had gotten themselves killed at the hands of the other half, Alexi’s body was probably rotting somewhere in the Wrenhaven river, and her greatest supporter, her Royal Protector, stood like a statue in her usurper’s court. She couldn’t afford to anger her few allies, so most of the time she just tried to stay out of Foster’s way. In a ship as small as the Dreadful Wale, that meant more or less keeping to her cabin. Holed up in the tiny room, she spent a lot of time alone with her thoughts. And her thoughts were...troubled.  
Emily had never killed someone before the coup. She knew all about how, of course. Corvo had spent long hours in her teens teaching her the basics of assassination. The location of key blood vessels, the right pressure points to cause crippling pain in an enemy. All the things he had learned in the days when he was called the Butcher of Dunwall. Those lessons had served her well.  
Ramsey had been the first, of course. Just remembering that sick little sneer of his, the one that he wore as he gleefully cut her life to pieces, made Emily’s vision run red. And she hadn’t even questioned at the time that he needed to die. She’d crept silently behind him as he stood in her safe room and drove the folding blade hilt deep into the soft viscera of his neck. He’d lived just long enough to choke on his own blood. After that, the killings had seemed natural. Ramsey’s men, lingering in the throne room. The Grand Guard stationed on the streets. Even that idiot printer. They were traitors, every one of them, and with the adrenaline pumping in her veins, Emily hadn’t even questioned the need for their deaths.  
But alone in the shadowy depths of the Dreadful Wale, Emily’s thoughts were filled with doubt. Was it really necessary? Corvo had hammered the message into her head that the only way to protect yourself was to eliminate the opposition. “No survivors is the surest way,” he’d say, his dark eyes never leaving hers. These dead men were soldiers she could be sure would never harm her again. But...they would never do anything again, would they? All that life, all that potential, snuffed out by her hand. Her choice. The more she thought about it, the more an uncomfortable sense of guilt filled her. She tried to rationalize it, but she couldn’t make the unpleasant feelings go away.  
The longer she thought about it, though, the more the guilt was replaced with another emotion: anger. She really shouldn’t be feeling guilt for her actions, after all, she was forced into them because of someone else’s failure. Corvo’s.   
He was her Royal Protector, after all. As well as her Spymaster. If stopping the coup was anyone’s responsibility, it was his. He was the one who had preached constant vigilance to her all through her childhood. The one who had told her that her enemies lurked behind every shadow, that only he had her best interests at heart. And yet, somehow, he had missed all the signs of rebellion. Corvo was supposed to have protected her and instead he had not only let her attackers reach her, but had allowed himself to be turned into more deadweight for her to carry while she tried to save herself. She thought of him, frozen with that stupid expression still on his face, and the anger rose in her again. All those years training her, turning her into a weapon, and he’d let himself get soft. An odd thought hit her: once Delilah’s dead, I’ll need a new Royal Protector. It was only fair. Corvo had gotten old, he just wasn’t up for the job anymore. And Emily had no more tolerance for mistakes.


	2. Fear

Emily could barely contain herself as the skiff approached the dock. Dry land, civilization, sat a taunting distance away from her. Beside her, Foster muttered monotonously, warnings and admonitions about the dangers of Serkonos, how she had to be on her guard. More nagging, and laughably unnecessary.   
Foster couldn’t know what had happened only the night before. When Emily had glimpsed the world beyond hers, the dark and fractured Void and the creature that lived within. He’d given her something, a gift, he said. The Mark burned on her hand, and even now, she could feel the possibilities inside her. Magic, her magic, with techniques to destroy, to deceive, to disappear. The means to control her enemies, just like Delilah had. This was true power, not the human fighting techniques Corvo had shown her. Emily felt a rush of anger towards her father again. All these years, he’d lied to her, hobbled her, never letting her achieve her true potential. But now she was in control.  
The Outsider had brought her another gift, too, and Emily had less of an idea about what to make of that one. The Heart, a gory disembodied organ that she just had to accept contained the soul of her late mother. It was a bizarre idea, and an unpleasant one. Emily wasn’t entirely convinced the apparition living in the Heart was really Jessamine, but she really didn’t know. Her memories of her mother were thin and frayed, like fabric stretched too far. It looked like the portrait of her mother Sokolov had done, and sounded a little like Emily’s memories of her. Still, Emily felt uneasy around the Heart, and had tucked it into a pocket of her coat with a resolution to use its power only if she needed it.  
As Emily stepped out into the bright sunshine of Karnaca, she was struck by how...normal...the docks looked. A women took silvergraphs of the sea while dock workers milled around, going about their business. Didn’t these people know that their rightful empress had been dethroned? She had spent the better part of her childhood at the task of managing the country. She’d given these people the best years of her life, stagnating in council meetings and arguing with idiot politicians. She’d lost her mother, her home, and her sense of stability to this job. Now she’d lost everything else. Didn’t they care? Ungrateful swine, Emily thought, gripping her sword tightly beneath her coat.  
But no, she told herself, these people, aggravating though they were, were her subjects. When this was all over, she’d need someone to rule over, right? She told herself to walk past the uncaring peasants, to put their betrayal out of her mind. Only killing those who were in her way, silently as a shadow passing over the city.  
Emily almost succeeded. Until she heard the song. On a street corner, two musicians drew a gaggle of onlookers as they sang, their voices soaring above the sounds of the city. The song was about her. About her failures as an empress. About how she brought the coup down on herself with her unsuccessful policies and treaties. About Delilah and the Duke’s right to the throne.  
For a moment Emily had stood listening, unable to believe her ears. And then, with a motion,she scarcely remembered making, the folding blade clicked open.  
When the first screams had started, Grand Guardsmen had rushed out, swords and pistols drawn. They’d been woefully underprepared. Even without her new abilities, Emily was more than a match for them. Corvo had at least taught her well, and she danced circles around the guards, her blade moving around them in a beautiful flicker of silver and ruby. The few guardsmen who were even close to her level found themselves floundering in confusion as multiple Emilies, some flying through the air on purple vines, attacked them at once. Quickly, the cries of rage turned to shrieks of pain and fear, and then, one by one, to silence.  
Emily stood in the middle of the street, panting hard, not caring who saw her. There was no one left to see, anyway. A gory trail marked her path through the city from the now-abandoned street corner to Addermire station, and the long tails of her coat dripped with fresh blood. Some hers, but mostly belonging to the corpses that lay in a messy heap behind her. Emily wondered what Corvo would say if he could see her. Would he be horrified at the slaughter? Or proud that his daughter had learned his ways so well?  
This must have been how Corvo had felt, all those years ago, cutting a bloody swath through Coldridge prison. Everyone who had hurt him, humiliated him, doubted him, breathing their last in front of his blade. He’d told her that story often. What he hadn’t told her was how...nice...it felt.  
She ought to feel horror at what she’d done. Guilt, like she’d felt in Dunwall. But it seemed her inner turmoil over the two-week voyage had cured her of that weakness. Yes, she realized, it had been weakness. Emily was the rightful ruler, fighting to take back her country. No action was outside of her purview, no cruelty not allowed her. These people were traitors to her, and therefore the entire empire. They’d fought her, mocked her, stood in the way of her justice. And now they paid the price for that.  
Looking over the bodies, she felt no more remorse, no nagging doubt. Rather, Emily felt relaxed, almost cheerful, for the first time in weeks. No longer was she the scared princess, hiding behind her titles and her father. No longer was she a victim. Now, she was something to be feared.  
Beneath her scarf, Emily smiled. Jessamine had often told her, in childhood, what a pretty smile she had. But the expression on the empress’s face was the furthest thing from beautiful. In the pocket of Emily’s coat, the Heart shuddered.


	3. Curiosity

Emily’s first look at Addermire threatened to destroy her newly-acquired good mood. The hospital sat perched on a jagged outcropping of rock a mile or so out into the rough seas at the end of the bay. Out here, storm clouds hovered above the imposing peaks and wind whistled ominously. Scattered around the front gates were clothes, luggage, scraps of paper and fabric, the detritus of human involvement. It was obviously abandoned in a frantic hurry, and the sight sent a little chill up Emily’s spine. It was a cold reminder that the Crown Killer, the mythical force that had been terrorizing the empire for months, resided somewhere on this island. Emily had a feeling that the assassin would not prove to be as easy prey as the guards and civilians on the docks.  
Yes, the Crown Killer, that was an interesting case. When Emily had first heard of the murderer, months ago, she’d been disgusted. Not just because the murderer was killing her subjects, or because they were making Emily look guilty, but because of how incredibly sloppy the murders were. Body parts strewn haphazard, teeth marks in the flesh that remained. At the time, Emily thought it was the work of a crazed amareur, and the idea that she or her father was responsible for such a hack job was frankly insulting. Now, though, with the screams from the docks still echoing in her ears, Emily thought she understood. Nothing the Crown Killer did was accidental. The maulings, the chewing, had all been for calculated effect. They had inspired the same mindless terror Emily had created by the docks, the kind of fear that turned rational, trained soldiers into fools and civilians into a panicked herd. The kind of fear that gave it’s wielder power. The Outsider had told her before that she and the Crown Killer were alike, now Emily thought that might be true. Pity it had to die.  
As did everyone else at Addermire. This time, Emily didn’t wreck bloody chaos but crept silently through the hospital, slitting throats and leaving the corpses to cool on the ground, faces forever frozen in one last expression of shock and pain. Addermire was an odd little maze of locked doors and bloodfly nests. Despite the heavy Grand Guard presence, the place felt empty and abandoned. Something very bad had happened here. Was still happening. Emily just hoped she’d be able to find this Dr. Hypatia, and that she’d have information about Sokolov and the Crown Killer.  
In the end, she found the doctor in the strangest of places. Emily had opened the door to the operating theater to find massive bloodfly nests clinging to every wall, growing from rotting corpses left on abandoned gurneys. Clearly this was the source of the disaster. Emily wasted precious bullets destroying the nests, but was rewarded when she passed through them to find a small, hunched figure in the room beyond.  
It was Dr. Hypatia, without a doubt. She was thinner than her pictures, with more lines on her face and deep circles under her eyes, but it was her. Emily looked on curiously as the preeminent doctor in Serkonos, the genius who invented the Addermire Solution, shuffled confusedly around the dingy lab, muttering softly to herself. She’s completely moonstruck, thought Emily. Absolutely daft.   
Rage welled up in Emily again. Hypatia was her best lead, but Emily could tell right away that talking to her wouldn’t be useful at all. She briefly considered slitting the old woman’s throat but the thought didn’t give her any satisfaction. Better to look around the lab, see if she could scrounge up and clues.  
It didn’t take long. Inside Hypatia’s office was a huge painting of herself, in Delilah’s style. Weird enough, but surrounding the painting, framed like pieces of art, were little chunks of embalmed flesh. Ears, feet, hands, from multiple people, with bloody tears at their edges. Emily was not 100% familiar with the lives and interior decorating choices of medical doctors, but she felt fairly certain this was not normal.  
Beside the gruesome art display were notes and maps. Emily recognized the locations marked on the maps; they were the same as the ones on the Dreadful Wale. Locations of Crown Killer attacks. She pulled a note off of one of them, and gasped when she realized it was from the Duke. And it very much appeared to be addressed to the Crown Killer.  
Emily quietly peeked around the corner, looking back at Dr. Hypatia with new eyes. The doctor hadn’t appeared to notice her come in, even as Emily had walked right by her. She was still shuffling back and forth in front of a lab table, muttering madly to herself. She looked just like one of the mad beggars that haunted the streets around Rudshore. Crazy, but harmless. But the muttering seemed to have changed. The doctor’s voice sounded lower, huskier. Or was that her imagination?  
No, no, it had to be. This moonstruck woman in front of her couldn’t be the infamous cannibal murderer. Besides not being able to string a sentence together, she looked sick, like a strong breeze would knock her over. And where was the motive? Foster had gone on and on about how kind the doctor was, how altruistic, how much she cared for all the little people of Karnaca. She didn’t seem like the type to torture civilians to death.  
Still, the Crown Killer had been here. Emily continued her search, taking care to move more quietly this time. In the very back of the lab, she finally found her lead.  
A broken and bloody man lay on a cot in a dark corner. Emily couldn’t be sure if he was breathing or not-he didn’t look like he should be-but she found herself wary to approach him. Please just let him be dead, she thought, not really sure why. But, as if in answer, the man gave a soft, wet cough. He was still alive, somehow, and he spoke to her in a pained and raspy voice.  
Emily wasn’t sure what she had expected him to say, but it wasn’t this. Dr. Hypatia was the Crown Killer, but not knowingly. One of her serums had warped her mind, causing a terrifying split personality to form. A personality that the Duke and Delilah had used to rain terror on the citizens of the empire. Emily listened, enraptured, hardly believing her ears. She was so intent on listening that she didn’t realize the heavy metal bookshelf was coming right at her head until it was too late.


	4. Love

The impact picked Emily up and threw her against the wall. She lay stunned, pinned under the bookcase, every part of her body aching. As she watched from under the metal shelf, some...thing...landed in front of her, having jumped through the newly-formed hole in the wall. The dark figure crouched on the ground, sniffling and hissing like an animal. Then it turned towards her, and Emily had to fight to keep herself from screaming.  
It wasn’t Dr. Hypatia, that was for certain, but it wore her skin like too-small clothing, bursting at the seams and revealing the flesh beneath. Hypatia’s pale skin had turned an ugly, blotchy grey, her lined and worried face had pulled back into a feral snarl. Her deep-set eyes glowed a bright yellow, and as they searched the room, that strange, husky voice Emily had heard earlier called out.  
This was a decidedly unwelcome turn of events. Those yellow eyes must not see very well, or the Crown Killer would have noticed Emily already. But it was only a matter of time. And here she was, trapped under a damn bookcase, practically handing herself to the murderer.  
Her salvation came in the form of the dying man on the cot. With the creature’s back turned, he desperately clawed his way through the hole in the wall, but inadvertently brought the monster’s attention back on himself. She leaped through the hole after him with inhuman speed, laughingly asking what his flesh tasted like.  
With a groan, Emily pushed the bookcase off of her and got to her feet as quickly and silently as she could, reaching out a magical vine to a rafter on the ceiling. She crouched in the darkness, gasping, searching the room frantically. There it was. Somehow, the creature had gotten up to the second floor and was standing there in the darkness, looking right at her with its glowing eyes. She held as still as she could, but quickly realized the Crown Killer could not see her. From the darkness, she watched it move instead.  
There was something fascinating about the creature-the woman? Did that term really apply to the alchemically-created monster? But the longer Emily watched, the more the Crown Killer did look like a woman to her. Without the urgency of fear, it was easier to see her for what she was. She walked with a strange, herky-jerky insectoid motion, every muscle tensed constantly. Up close, it looked terrifyingly inhuman. But from a safe distance, it looked almost graceful. She called again in that throaty voice, sounding like no voice Emily had ever heard. It was deep, husky, and soft to the point of feeling almost intimate. There was a wet quality to it, like just speaking injured the the throat it came from. There was something about it…  
“Oh, when I find you I’m going to take my time,” came the voice, sing-song and gleeful. “I like the taste of young flesh.”  
Something alluring.  
That was a weird thought, and a distracting one. But Emily couldn’t deny the effect the soft voice had on her. Now that the panicked drum beat of her heart had quieted, she could feel another pulsing, in an area distinctly far away from her heart.   
She’d had woman, back in Dunwall. Tittering nobles, equally elated and anxious about the empress’s attentions; blushing servant girls; strangers in Dunwall’s hidden alleys who had no idea she had royal blood. They had been fun distractions from the job, but not much more. They had all lacked something, something Emily couldn’t quite identify, but sorely needed. She couldn’t quite..connect to them, and now she thought she understood why.  
They were civilians. Victims. They spent their lives being herded, told what to do and who to be, and they accepted it. Emily might have, too, had this coup not occurred. She’d have wasted her life in boredom and servitude, working for a country full of ungrateful, useless sheep. In a way, Delilah had given her a gift. Exile had allowed Emily to come into her own, become the power she was always meant to be, the force she always knew she was. Of course Emily had trouble relating to the herd. She wasn’t prey. She was a predator.  
And so was the woman in front of her.  
The thought elicited a gasp from Emily’s lips and another pulse of heat from between her thighs. Someone like her. Someone real. She thought again about what a pity it was the Crown Killer had to die.  
No, no, it couldn’t just happen like that. She needed confirmation. Emily reached into her pocket for the thing she’d been hoping she wouldn’t have to use. Bringing the Heart up to eye level, she squeezed it hard.  
“This is the one they call the Crown Killer,” her mother’s voice echoed softly in Emily’s head, and her heart sank. “But she thinks of herself as Grim Alex.”  
Not the news she wanted. Desperately, she squeezed the Heart harder, and it choked out more secrets. Grim Alex, beautiful, deadly, securely in the service of the Duke. Emily hissed to herself. The creature really did have to die.  
She thought numbly of what the dying man had said. A counter-serum in his office that could bring the doctor’s original personality back. Hopefully her mind, too. It would be useful to have a genius doctor at her beck and call. That would just have to do.  
Pocketing the Heart, Emily turned and crept out of the operating theater.  
The counter-serum had been easier, but grosser, to make than Emily had thought. She carried the metal syringe, full of rotten blood and Void know what else, back to the operating theater. Below her, Grim Alex had returned to the first floor and was stalking back and forth over the bloody tiles. She no longer sounded pleased, and Emily reflected on how frustrating it must be for the hunter to lose her prey to her poor eyesight. Well, she thought, that was almost over.  
But she didn’t move. She stayed frozen, perched on the balcony, watching Grim Alex. Her hand twitched on the hilt of the folding sword, but she couldn’t bring herself to pull the blade. A war raged in her mind and heart. This Grim Alex, she worked for Delilah, she had been at least partially responsible for the coup. Hadn’t Emily just decided that all Delilah’s traitors had to die? No action outside her purview, no cruelty not allowed her? But what about cruelty to herself? As illogical as it felt, she couldn’t stomach the thought of killing this woman. Her fellow predator.  
In the quiet darkness, she allowed herself to dream. The fun they could have together. How lovely it would be, to be understood, to understand. To be matched by another person. It was at that moment that Grim Alex’s voice rang out again, rife with frustration and suppressed rage.  
“They told me I’d taste royal blood when I did this,” she hissed to no one in particular. “They lied! They lied…”  
And Emily understood. It was so simple, she wondered how she could have missed it. They were more alike than Emily realized.  
She looked around the dark, dank operating theater. This wasn’t a home. It was a prison. Just like Dunwall Tower had been for her. She looked down at Grim Alex, but now in pity. They were powerful, they were predators. And yet, they spent their lives in cages, toiling in the service of the weak. Delilah thought she could just use this woman. Use her powers to terrorize the Empire, just long enough to get Delilah on the throne. But now that Delilah had become legitimate, she had no use for her pet monster. She planned to let her devoted servant rot in this place. So ungrateful. So cruel.   
If it were her, Emily would thank her for her service, exhault her, keep her close. In fact…  
She thought of Corvo, a statue decorating Delilah’s throne room. Hadn’t she just been thinking that she needed a new Royal Protector? Someone stronger, sharper, more ruthless. She made up her mind in an instant, and leapt down from the rafters in front of Grim Alex, unsheathing the folding sword in a fluid movement.


	5. Lust

Alex’s eyes widened at the sight of her prey dropping into her lap, but she didn’t miss a beat. Her clawed hand swept back at Emily’s sword arm with truly unbelievable force. Emily was surprised she didn’t hear the crack of her wrist bones breaking, but as it was, the blow sent a wave of numbness down her arm and knocked the sword from her hand. The folding sword carved a glittering silver arc as it flew through the air away from Emily and clattered to the ground.  
Emily grinned under her scarf. This was already going better than she could have hoped. If she survived this, it would be the best decision she’d ever made.  
Alex let out a moan of mixed delight and fury. Emily thought it was the most erotic sound she’d ever heard, and gasped as Alex suddenly rushed her with inhuman speed.  
Emily slammed into the dirty tile as the smaller woman held her down with a grip of iron. Heat rolled off her grayish skin in waves and her glowing eyes met Emily’s, their faces inches from each other.   
“Little princess, little princess, mine at last,” she sang, tearing the scarf from Emily’s neck with her sharp teeth to expose a beating artery. Her breath was hot and strangely sweet-smelling as she lowered her mouth to Emily’s flesh. And then, her teeth just touching Emily’s skin, she froze.  
It was a tiny poke, barely enough for a creature like Alex to feel. But Alex had Hypatia’s medical knowledge, and she knew what the needle of a syringe felt like. She looked down, mad eyes wide, to see Emily holding the tip of the metal syringe in the flesh of her stomach, ready to push the plunger down.  
“What is this? What do you think you’re doing?” she spat. There was a tinge of fear coloring her voice.  
“You already know,” Emily smiled up at her. “ You know exactly what this is. And if you move, I’ll send you to sleep forever.” She was keenly aware of the fire she was playing with, but Emily had never felt more alive as she did, lying in the muck on the cold floor of the operating theater.  
Alex’s jaw worked furiously, her eyes sweeping side to side, looking for an escape that wasn’t there. “What do you want, little witch?” she said finally.  
“I want to help you, Alex,” she enjoyed the little flash of surprise on the woman’s face as she said the name. “I think we can help each other”  
“Look around this place, Alex,” she continued. “You’ve been forgotten. Shelved. Are you really okay living like this? Taking meager scraps from Delilah as she abandons you to rule the country from the throne you helped her get?”  
This drew a moment’s pause. Then Alex spat out, “Delilah...Delilah understands. I am her favorite, her strongest. She needs me, she gives me-”  
“She needed you. She gave you. But she doesn’t need you anymore. She wants to play empress on the throne in Dunwall and you’ve outlived your usefulness. She’ll leave you here to rot while she lives in the palace that you gave her. So sad.”  
At this, Alex howled with rage, smashing her hands down on Emily’s chest. Stars erupted in front of her eyes from the blow, but she forced herself to match Alex’s angry gaze. Her hands shook on the syringe but she kept the confident smile on her lips as the Crown Killer raged at her. Eventually, Alex, realizing she wasn’t getting a reaction, looked back down at her. She could feel Alex’s gaze sweeping through her like a physical force, searching for the lie. And not finding it.  
“What do you want?” she asked again, but this time her voice was soft, uncertain.  
“I can set you free,” Emily forced her voice to remain steady. She was so close. “I see who you really are. You’re no pet. You’re a predator. Just like me.” She took her hands off the syringe, letting it fall to the floor and roll away. Alex’s eyes widened as she traced its path across the floor, then slowly looked back to Emily. The move was risky, but it had had the right effect.  
Emily slowly moved her hands up to Alex’s face. “We don’t belong in cages. I’m going to take back my country. Not just from that pretend empress. From all the little parasites that have been feeding off me all these years. I’m done bowing to them. They’ll bow to me, or they’ll bleed. And you...you could be by my side. Not hidden away, but acknowledged. Royal Protector,” she said clearly, and Alex cocked her head in obvious interest. “Royal Executioner.”  
They sat in silence for several long minutes, Emily desperately trying to guess what was going through the other woman’s mind. Finally, Alex narrowed her eyes and hissed “Promises. I’ve heard promises before. You want my help. But what will you give me, little empress? What can you offer?” Her voice was barely above a whisper, wet and deep, full of longing. Waves of heat rolled through Emily’s body at the thought.  
“You said you wanted royal blood. Well you can have mine right now,” she leaned her neck back, the exposed artery pulsing wildly. “You could kill me and report back to Delilah and she’ll give you a pat on the head and send you back to your dark little cage.” Alex stiffened. “Or you could have something else. You could…” she licked her lips. “You could taste something else royal. You could have that as much as you wanted.”  
“What...what are you…” Grim Alex actually stuttered, but Emily could see the understanding in her eyes. And the longing. For soft, warm flesh, for screams not of pain but pleasure.   
“I’m offering myself to you,” Emily’s voice was low now too, almost a purr. “And you know you want it. You know what I am, what I’m giving. We’re two of a kind, you and I. You’ll never have a chance like this again. A chance to be...understood.” She pulled her coat and vest apart from her chest. “Aren’t you tired of being alone?”  
Alex stopped for the beat of a heart. Then, with a howl of longing, she clasped on to Emily’s shirt and bra and tore the fabric apart like paper. She slipped one long claw across the rise of Emily’s breast, drawing a thin red line. Emily barely noticed the sting. She met Alex’s eyes as Alex lowered her face to the cut. Her long tongue slipped along it, and she moaned in pleasure at the taste of the blood. Emily moaned too, arching her back to press closer to the predator, begging to be taken. She dug her own short nails into Alex’s back, tearing at the demure little sweater the doctor had been wearing and drawing dark blood.   
Alex pressed her mouth to Emily’s breast, tongue dancing around her nipple as she drank in the sweet blood of the empress. Her hands moved down Emily’s body as she bucked and rocked, leaving thin cuts. She sliced through Emily’s pants and underclothes, and then dragged her lips and tongue down Emily’s stomach, moaning softly when she reached the spots of blood. Finally, she reached the space between Emily’s legs, which throbbed with heat and desire.  
Alex’s strong hands pushed Emily’s thighs apart with one decisive movement, and Emily curled her legs around the woman’s shoulders with a desperate strength. She stiffened with mingled fear and uncontrollable desire as she felt Alex’s cold teeth pass along the most sensitive part of her body. But Alex’s long tongue pushed through, and Emily lost the ability to think of anything at all. Alex dug her fingers deep into Emily’s thighs and butt, holding her steady as she squirmed and kicked in ecstasy. Holding her close.  
The wet movement between Emily’s legs came faster and harder, and she and Alex gasped and moaned together as the other woman drank deep from the empress, delighted. Alex made one last jerk upward and slid her hands down Emily’s thighs as she screamed in pleasure, no longer able to contain herself. She gasped, breasts rising and falling heavily against Alex’s wet mouth, her fingers tangled tightly in her lover’s hair, pulling her head close. Emily lay on the dirty tile, clothes in rags, bleeding from a dozen cuts, but she smiled in the darkness as she watched Grim Alex lick her prized royal blood from her lips. Then Alex stopped and met her eyes, her expression a mirror of the empress’s own. Emily’s blood still on her lips, Alex pulled her new lover in for a rough kiss.


	6. Understanding

Megan Foster never saw the shadowy figure who followed the skiff as she let Emily off at the drop points. She never guessed why the empress smiled as she got off the boat. Megan could never have known what Emily and her new best friend did on those days. How they cut down enemies by the masses and bathed in the blood, Alex fulfilling her destiny and Emily fulfilling her promises. How they’d laughed and kissed blood off each other, reveling their power.  
Megan knew that Emily left a dark trail through Serkonos, that she had systematically removed from power everyone who could govern the city of Karnaca. But she didn’t see how it happened. How the man who had laughingly thrown Emily out of the Tower bowed at her feet, begging for his life. How he had looked at Grim Alex, his pet, and knew exactly what was coming for him. How it was still worse than he could have imagined.  
And as Megan stood on the deck of the Dreadful Wale, preparing the ship for the long journey back to Dunwall, wondering if anything she had done in Serkonos had been worth it, she didn’t see Emily standing behind her, folding sword unsheathed. As Emily tossed her still bleeding body into the dark waters of the bay, Megan didn’t hear Sokolov’s screams from below deck as Grim Alex finally finished what she started  
Finally alone, Alex and Emily pulled the ship out to sea. This time, the two weeks passed like a dream. They spent their time making love on every deck of the ship, making plans for the empire they would run together, and discussing the fate of their last remaining enemy. They made landfall in Dunwall on a cold, dark day, and took the city by storm. Witches, dogs, even clockworks fell to their ruthless teamwork. And Alex finally got her royal meal, tearing apart the usurper queen as Emily watched, smiling, from the throne.   
Corvo never woke up. It was for the best, Emily thought. He was old and tired, and with him frozen in time, forever unchanging, she didn’t have to worry about him anymore. Privately, a small and unacknowledged part of her mind feared what he would say if he could see her now. That she had passed so far through the darkness that even her cruel father, the Butcher of Dunwall, would no longer recognize her. She didn’t entertain those feelings, though.  
Her new Royal Protector-her Royal Executor-kept her busy enough. Alex moved through the Empire like a needle through fabric, unseen, unstoppable, culling enemies of the throne with ease. After that she’d return to her empress, with kisses and cuts and dark promises. Ready to once again spill royal blood.


End file.
